“No, hardly so close as that,” declares a second.
“Well, he ain’t much farther away,” another joins in. And exclamations of “Well done, Tombs!” “Well aimed, sir!” ring out from the Ridge unheeded, because unheard by the gunners steadily plying their grim trade. For Major Tombs is a general favourite; stories of his prowess and dare-devilry have spread throughout the British camp, and the approving cheers are echoed from scores of throats.
“Might this be a cricket match?” suavely enquires a captain of the 60th Rifles as he smiles at the enthusiasm.
The mutineers are aghast! How have those batteries been brought there and concealed and protected? And then, only one hundred and sixty yards from the Water Bastion, No. 3 unmasks. But, alas! the work has necessarily been done at night, and in the darkness a serious mistake has been made. The big piles of covered sand-bags, which had been placed to hide the guns from the watchful enemy, as well as to protect our gunners from their fire when the moment should come for unmasking, are found to have been carefully piled in a wrong position, so as to obstruct the aim of our guns. For men to go outside the shelter in order to remove the obstruction will not only take a long time, but will expose to almost certain death any brave enough to venture out. So thinks the heroic commandant of the battery, who fears nothing for himself, but hesitates to order his men to be shot down one by one, for so close are they under the walls that the rebel gunners can hardly miss them. But while he pauses in doubt, a Sikh sapper calmly springs outside and commences to throw down the pile before his own gun. With one accord the other sappers and gunners follow the noble example, and the clearance is effected with such rapidity that the guns are ready to open fire before the sepoys have grasped the fact of the battery’s presence.
Then is hurled forth such a shower of shell and heavy shot from that short distance that the traitors are filled with dismay. The iron hurricane teaches them at last what English artillery can do even in the face of such tremendous odds. This salvo of heavy guns heralds the turning-point of the Sepoy war, and determines the fate of the Indian empire. As the huge Water Bastion crumbles into a shapeless mass of masonry and is crushed into atoms by these 18-and 24-pounders, so the great mutiny is crushed and crumbled at the same time. The last hope of the mutineers is quenched; they may fight on, they may inflict great damage on the Feringhi, they may still accomplish further murders and massacres in various places throughout the land, but all hope of final triumph, all chance of overthrowing the British raj is gone for ever, destroyed by the fire of this magnificent artillery.
In Hindustan news travels from mouth to mouth over hundreds of miles almost as quickly as by telegraph; so north and south, east and west, flew the tidings that the walls and gates of Delhi were being battered down, that in the course of a few days the great city would be in the hands of the sahibs and the Mogul emperor a captive. Amongst the Pathan tribes along the Punjab frontier, in Afghanistan, Beluchistan, Waziristan, Kashmir, the Black Mountain country, and in Nepal, the news was told, and Afghan, Beluchi, Waziri, Afridi, Mohmand, Bunerwal, Swati, Yusufzai, Mamund, and Punjabi, who would most eagerly have helped to rout and destroy the British had our army retired beaten from Delhi, now scornfully turned a deaf ear to all appeals of the mutineers to come over and help them. For the Pathan worships success and despises the fallen.
“Nay,” said they, “if you with forty thousand men and nearly two hundred cannon, entrenched behind strong walls and with every advantage, if you could be held in check for weeks by two or three thousand British and five hundred Gurkha monkey-men, and a few hundred more of our brethren of the Guides whom ye could not defeat, and then suffered your walls to be battered down as soon as this small army had been reinforced by more of our countrymen and neighbours, what chance will ye have now, driven out of your stronghold? And are not fresh red-coated regiments and corps of fierce, tall men in women clothes even now arriving from beyond the seas? Nay, we will not join you; rather will we fight on the side of the kafirs,[1] together with the Gurkha pigs and vile Sikh infidels.”
[1] Kafir (infidel) is a term frequently applied by Mohammedans, to denote a European.
So the tribesmen now offered their services in such numbers that they had to be refused. They brought wild horses that would not suffer any man to mount them, and they came with ancient, worn-out steeds, blind, lame, and weak at the knees, swearing and protesting that these were all splendid chargers, perfectly trained and in superb condition. With these they would fight the mutineers, if only the great sahibs, Edwardes and Jan Larens, would give them a soldier’s pay. So John Lawrence, Commissioner of the Punjab, was enabled to send down more than fifty thousand men to uphold the British raj.
Day and night throughout the 12th and 13th of September the breaching operations continued, fifty guns grinding mercilessly at the rock-like walls. Though defeat stared them in the face the sepoys showed a courageous front to the end, and as their cannon were one by one knocked out of action, they brought fresh guns up and returned a rapid and well-aimed fire. Their sharp-shooters were told off to pick out the English gunners, and no easy task had those gallant fellows. To our hero and to the hundreds of onlookers the bombardment formed a grand but awful spectacle. Fascinated by the sight, they watched the salvoes of artillery directed at the bastions, every shot striking home, sending up clouds of dust, and followed often enough by a fall of masonry. The rebel shots whistled and rattled in the air, guns flashed and shells exploded both over their own men and over the doomed city. From the highest to the lowest, from the general in command to the youngest drummer-boy, all knew that this was the crowning work of anxious months of toil. Proud men were the engineer officers, Baird Smith and Taylor, one the brain, the other the hand that had thought out and directed this supreme finish. Proud also were Brind, Tombs, and the other artillerymen, for without their magnificent heroism and skill the plans of the engineers would have come to naught.